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> One can no longer openly discuss certain extremely important topics (is there something inherently wrong with Islam as a belief system? Is Black Lives Matter doing good or bad things? Are women really paid less than men for performing the same work?)

Some very prominent and (mostly) beloved liberals talk about these things _constantly_. Bill Maher, Sam Harris, Maajid Nawaz, and Salman Rushdie for example, are very vocal about problems in Islam. They do receive some pushback from some liberals, but they're far from being "no longer [able to] openly discuss" these things. It's almost like liberals aren't a homogenous collection of people!

Those people are all famous for saying controversial things. It's part of their brand. They get effectively get passes because:

1. They're famous and very successful 2. They hold enough "appropriate" beliefs that minor deviations are tolerated 3. They’re all used to death threats.

Many ordinary people don't enjoy those benefits. Like the teacher who was mentioned earlier who wanted "rule of law" and got fired for "racism." Or the owners that pizza shop in Indiana who got harassed by the entire internet for saying they wouldn't cater a gay wedding, neverminding the fact that nobody would want a pizza shop to cater a wedding and that nobody was denied service at that shop.

I mean, even those two people are lucky, because their stories got famous enough to generate national media interest. What about the people who don't get interviewed by newspapers after their livelihoods are destroyed for saying the wrong thing in the wrong place?

i'm kinda stumped what exactly you take issue with here... voicing your opinion in a public manner has consequences.

that will hopefully never change, as otherwise the words you're saying become meaningless. don't take a public stance on an issue laden with ideals unless you're fine being attacked by the other side.

on second though: considering trumps habit of simply telling lies on air with absolutely no consequences ... celebrities are kinda immune to this effect.

I personally am taking issue with parent's claim that the four liberal individuals mentioned are proof that it is "safe" to express potentially controversial opinions, especially when they run afowl of the domininant left wing viewpoint in America. Grandparent was clearly talking about ordinary people when describing the negative effects of "moral sanctimony" on public discourse in America.

I would agree with you that public speech should have consequences. I probably don't agree with you what those consequences ought to be -- what sort of "attacks" are appropriate given what is being said in what context. I don't think either of the two ordinary people I used as counter examples deserved the treatment they got for what they said.

I think it's bad for society if every difference of opinion is reacted to as being completely intolerable to the point of ending a career. In addition to creating resentment that men like Trump (and also people who are far worse) can exploit, it makes it impossible to discuss other controversial issues in the future. If we care about being good people living the best lives we can, we need to be able to discuss unpopular ideas, because we don't know which ideas that are considered unpopular today will be ones we will later find to be practically useful or morally virtuous tomorrow.

It's great that those prominent figures are discussing difficult questions openly. That can only result in good things for our society. However, not all of us have such luxury. For most of us, merely asking the initial questions to start a difficult/challenging conversation can have very bad consequences in the current climate.

If you've got a job as a coder at a SV company, you'd better be extremely careful about starting a conversation with coworkers at lunch about how concerned you are by how acceptable honor killings seem to be in Muslim-majority societies. Starting such a conversation could get you ostracized, fired, or worse, which is unfortunate because that's precisely the kind of bad idea (honor killings) which need to be challenged, and which are of very real and very immediate importance at this time.

I live/work in NYC—a fellow bastion of liberalism. Anecdotally, I've never had any problems talking about these things with friends or coworkers.

This is a delicate conversation, as there is a LOT of bigoted rhetoric around Muslims (our President is guilty of this type of talk), and it should be condemned. But if done with a tiny bit of care, you should have no problem criticizing extremism. I've never met a liberal that would defend the Charlie Hebdo attacks or honor killings.

Having lived in both places, NYC is different: engaging in partly emotional, contentious, shouty discussion is normal. Californians avoid and fear direct confrontation of this sort and if it happens they resent it.

Do you know a single person --regardless of religion-- who supports honor killing? Of course not. This is just an excuse to engage in fear mongering about Islam, and no good will come of that.

Essentially the issue here is that some people want to say racist or bigoted things without being ostracized for it. Like you could in the good old days, when everybody was racist. So now there is this big backlash, but it won't amount to anything because we're in the 21st century now and we're never going back.

> Do you know a single person --regardless of religion-- who supports honor killing? Of course not. This is just an excuse to engage in fear mongering about Islam, and no good will come of that.

Bad logic, I don't know a single person who supports White Nationalism but that doesn't mean they are not there.

Also most honor killing isn't really a calm and rational following of a religious edict like "Today is Sabbath so I should go to Mosque" or "My daughter slept with a married man, looks like to keep my family's honor I need to kill her', rather it comes out as the same rage as when husbands who catch their wives cheating get when they kill them.

Also there is wide statistical proofs of support for Honor killings among Muslims, if I were you I wouldn't claim that there are literally no Muslims who support this.

I said this person doesn't know anybody who is okay with honor killing, therefore there is nothing to discuss. Everybody he knows already agrees it's bad, so the only thing the discussion accomplishes is making Muslims look barbaric, and that's gross.

> Do you know a single person --regardless of religion-- who supports honor killing?

Presumably at the very least the people who are doing the honor killings support honor killings.

No I don't know anyone who openly supports honor killings. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot of support among Muslims:

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religi...

Work environments aren't meant to be a forum to discuss politically sensitive topics. Would you be able to discuss abortion rights or gay marriage at work? Then why is it so problematic if honor killings are a taboo topic? Also, what is your interest in honor killings, as opposed to say gun violence? Are more people being killed because of this barbaric custom, or is it because that's what the media and all Islamophobes love to bring up during any discussion of Islam? If you really wanted to educate yourself on the topic you would have easily found a source [1] with contrary information but that would burst the media bubble we are surrounded by in this country

[1] https://blog.oup.com/2014/07/five-important-facts-about-hono...

It's because they are "prominent" liberal people, that's what they are known for.

Not the case for average Joe.

Try saying any of those things on social media and see how far you get. If you don't immediately get Zucc'ed you'll be mobbed by libs screaming and frothing at the mouth.

I don't get this idea that we can't talk about these things. Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse. Not only can you openly discuss them, but you can successfully get elected President while doing so.

You can't say, "We can't even discuss this stuff. That's why Trump won." The very idea contradicts itself.

> Right now the entire national government is run by people who have no trouble talking about these things, and much worse.

You seem to be implying that such questions are inherently immoral, and that's exactly the kind of sentiment that I challenged in my original comment. You can't demonize people for wanting to ask legitimate questions and have legitimate discussions.

There are difficult questions and there are bad questions. There IS a difference.

This question is bad: "Why do black people think their lives matter?"

This question is difficult, but not bad: "Is the Black Lives Matter movement doing good?"

I understand your point. We're in a very polarized political environment, and I think it's important to recognize the context buried in questions like "Is the Black Lives Matter movement doing good?" It's suspicious sounding on its face, without any specifics or nuance given. There's a LOT of hatred toward the BLM movement that is completely indefensible (e.g., applauding running over BLM protesters in the street, or accusing them of inciting violence). BLM is not beyond criticism. If you have a something to critique, critique it. On its face, "Is Black Lives Matter doing good?" smells a lot like "I think BLM is bad". And that is likely to be met with an unpleasant response.

Consider that as "much worse" from the perspective of those who see these topics as bad.

The people currently in power are more than happy to talk about murdering the families of terrorists and torturing suspects for information. If they were ever to express any resistance about discussing whether Islam is an inherently bad belief system, it would only be because they thought the answer was clearly "yes." When the whole national government is run by people like that, I can't understand this idea that topics such as you mention are somehow off-limits.

> You can't demonize people for wanting to ask legitimate questions and have legitimate discussions.

You also can't claim that merely asking those questions will lead to demonization or ostracism, since we recently freely elected a leader who asks such questions.

Electing Trump doesn't contradict OPs perception. Just because Trump won doesn't mean everyone is surrounded by Trump supporters.

In fact, I am pretty left-leaning, as are most of my friends, co-workers, social-circle, and neighborhood.. Trump is not popular in the context of my life.

However, I don't agree with all of the left dogma. While I can talk frankly about my criticisms of those topics with close friends, even polite and genuine questioning of some left-dogma has been met with immediate vitriol by otherwise friendly acquaintances, despite having not made any statement of judgement, and otherwise agreeing on most topics!

If you grovel down and frame your discussion as "I am dumb, educate me!" they are willing to have a happy discussion where they tell you their opinion.

On the other hand, if you are mildly informed and frame it as "I question a few things and want to discuss for introspection's sake", you are in for a dismissive discussion.

Scorning introspection is very unhealthy.

There are people who will freak out if you question the existence of a deity, or propose that maybe climate change isn't entirely a leftist hoax, or that a Prius battery will last more than five years. That doesn't mean these topics are off limits in general.

Knowing people who don't respond well to discussing controversial ideas is irrelevant—I have no idea who you know, so I can't make any claims about what they will or won't allow. But is discussing controversial opinions holding people back? Clearly, the answer is no.

I think you're confusing an election with public discourse. You can vote in anonymity and no one has to know who you voted for. You can't get on social media (for example) and openly support anything even remotely Trump without copping at least some backlash.

Trump won because people have their own personal beliefs and ideas which they take with them into the polling booths.

I'm not talking about the voters, I'm talking about Trump himself. He talked about this stuff in pretty reprehensible ways, and his "punishment" was being elected. This is contrary to the idea that mere mention of these topics leads to ostracism and career death.

> it's that very fatigue which seems to be one of the factors which drove people to vote for a truly awful leader.

I don't understand this reasoning. Why would someone who hates being unfairly called a bigot go and vote for a bigot? If I hated it when people called me a socialist, I wouldn't vote for Bernie Sanders!

What seems more likely is that bigotry is fairly common and a lot of people are bigoted in ways they don't necessarily realize.

Voting is anonymous, so calling people names based off who they voted for isn't a viable strategy.

Why are those the extremely important topics that need discussion? What about the people who are actually being hurt every day in America (drug addicts, prisoners, trans people, poor people...)?

They're questions with profound societal significance, and they're even more important now because of how little we've been able to discuss them openly. The dam is bursting, in other words.

I don't understand your second question, but I'd be happy to reply to it if you could clarify a bit.

OK, let me put it another way: there are billions of billions of billions of possible questions we could be asking. Most of them are not things that people talk about, and that people would be confused about if you brought them up. Why are the specific questions you mention worth discussing?

What a bizarre response?

The parent is suggesting that there are other topics that people feel are important and want to discuss, and your dismissive response seems to be, "We have all of these other things to discuss that I think are important, without justification, we don't have much more room for what you want to discuss, so you need to justify it for me."

Why is anything worth discussing? Because people think it is! It should be self-evident! Enough people mis-understand enough things that we got this new incompetent president; maybe we aught to discuss what they want more so that we can all be on the same page?

I agree with you; the things you mention are worth talking about, but so are many things that are shouted down and we have room to talk about them all.

Just like "Black Lives Matter" doesn't mean "Only Black Lives Matter" their statement doesn't mean those are the only extremely important topics that need discussion.

If you question the dogma of social justice, you will be lynched on social media

lynched on social media is an unfortunate construction. Excoriated? Mocked? Humiliated? Harassed? All things that can happen on social media.

Anyway, what are the arguments against building a just society? Since you call social justice a dogma, I'd ask you to separate out arguments against the concept of a just society from arguments about whether specific ideas and policies represent progress towards a just society.